Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Picking Watermelons

The new students have arrived and we've begun Orientation. I've not been around much for the first couple of days, so I haven't really begun to get to know the students. I'm not taking my first lecture until next week, so I've been preparing that and trying to get up to speed with the lectures that will follow after my first one. It's going to be quite an intense time, but I think I already told you that, didn't I?

Ruth and I went to Canberra on Tuesday (oh, and the kids came as well) for our medicals. It went well, but we've got no air conditioning in the car so the journey was...let's just say 'highly uncomfortable'. I was the only one having an X-Ray (the kids don't need one and Ruth is pregnant) so had to face, once again, the indignity of having my body zapped with radiation and then the radiologist coming out a few moments later and saying "Yeah, we need to do another one because your chest is too big for the machine". The same happened to me in the UK. So, I'm being doubly irradiated every time they X-Ray my chest purely because I happen to be a stunning Adonis. Well, or freakishly malformed. One of the two.

Speaking of 'Adonis', I've had a few shifts on the farm. We've been doing watermelon picking. We start our shift at 6:30am, and finish at 12pm - so as to avoid the blistering Australian sun. For that period I am picking watermelons. Watermelons can grow to 20 kilos plus (Calvin was weighed for our medicals and came in at 20.1 kilos) so I'm spending a few hours heaving my children around in the heat. A few more weeks of that and I'll have the bronzed body of a Greek god and arms that could crush a human head like...well, like a ripe watermelon. A perfect set of skills for teaching and discipling in a Christian community, I'm sure you agree.

Anyway, I'd better get on with it. Those lectures won't write themselves.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Beginning of the Year


Hello one and all. We're a couple of weeks into 2009 and things are beginning to start happening.

The new students will be turning up in the coming week, and things begin in earnest next Monday. I am still (at the time of writing) unsure of some of the things that I will be doing so I can't, at this stage, predict how busy I'm going to be. I suspect that I'll be very busy in the opening months of the year, as it'll all be new to Ruth and I. I think I'm teaching Old and New Testament, which appear to be the first two teaching modules. This might mean that I'll be packing a lot in before Easter, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'd be lying if I wasn't said I was apprehensive about it as well. It's all new and it'll be a steep learning curve - and we're right in the middle of sorting out the visa too. We ended up packing a lot in to the last six months and I think the next six will be even more tiring.


We've been in Sydney for a few days. It was nice to take advantage of the summer weather and visit the beach. We also traveled up the Sydney Tower, which gives a view of the city from high in the sky. I suppose it's a bit like the London Eye, but it doesn't move about. Actually, Sydney from the sky looks like any other city from the sky. The things you'd really like to see (such as the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House) tend to be obscured by high-rise office buildings. A good time was had by all, though we did a lot of walking and we left behind a box in Ikea.


So it'll be an intense couple of weeks, and an interesting few months. I think that one of the key things for me will be to keep trying to work God into the centre of what I'm doing. I can easily see all this becoming a comfortable 'routine' and that's part of what I was trying to avoid by coming to Cornerstone in the first place. I want to make sure that I don't end up wasting my time on projects that appear to be worthy but turn out to be secondary - or worse.

I'll let you know how things are going. God bless.

Friday, January 2, 2009

New Year Update

Hello all, and a Happy New Year.

Just thought I'd write you a quick update since we've finally entered 2009. I finished my Certificate IV course on New Year's Eve, which was a cause for celebration in itself - though I haven't had my work marked yet so it's possible that I'll still need to do a few bits and pieces to satisfy the assessor. This means that Ruth and I can finally begin the visa application process - and with only three months to go before we get kicked out of the country it's about time.

Ruth I have to work our way through medicals and police checks, so we're probably not going to be able to submit the actual visa for another month at least. If you're inclined that way, please pray for us as we negotiate with the bureaucratic Orwellian nightmare that is the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (if anyone from DIAC is reading this then I don't mean it. You're lovely people really).

Thanks to all of you who have kept reading through the dark times of 2008 - yes, that includes you Peter Idris. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you up-to-date with what's happening in Canowindra over this year. Provided that we're still here in a few months, that is.

That reminds me. I'd better change the name of the blog - The Webbs at Burrabadine is so 2008.

Hope that you had a great New Year, and keep watching the skies. Errr, I mean, this space. Keep watching this space.